European Commission website is wrong to give British jobs to foreign workers

European Commission website is wrong to give British jobs to foreign workers

THE lure of cheap foreign labour has caused many would-be employers in the UK to advertise jobs on an official European Commission website.

PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sat, Aug 2, 2014

Gordon Brown was caught out in 2009 when he talked about 'British jobs for British workers' [GETTY]

So popular is the site that a third of all the work advertised on it is in Britain – some 778,804 vacancies out of a total of 2.4 million. In contrast there are just 2,000 jobs advertised in Spain. Even in Germany there are only 400,000 positions on offer. How can we even begin to talk about controlling immigration in the face of these hard facts?

Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown was badly caught out when he talked about “British jobs for British workers” back in 2009 because he could guarantee no such thing. The situation has not changed.

Of those 778,804 job vacancies available here we can be reasonably sure that the greater proportion will go to workers from other EU countries. As Tory MP Douglas Carswell says: “If there are that many jobs being created in this country imagine if we were outside the EU – we would be able to get the very best applicants.”

Many jobs in Britain go to relatively unskilled European workers on low pay who will also make use of our benefits system when they arrive – perfectly legally. They will send their children to our schools, use our health service and – hard-working though they may be – will not be contributing anything very significant to the Treasury. We cannot continue like this.

If there are that many jobs being created in this country imagine if we were outside the EU – we would be able to get the very best applicants

Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP

Great War remembered

During the next few days we will be marking the solemn centenary of the start of the First World War. The Royal Mint is producing a £20 silver coin depicting the figure of Britannia watching the first troops leave for France.

But others have more personal ways of marking the events. Maurice French is returning to the battlefield of Mons where his uncle Lieutenant Maurice Dease died and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Mr French’s granddaughter Lilly – celebrating her first birthday – will be there wearing the socks worn by Lieutenant Dease as a baby.

There are many ways of not forgetting the sacrifice made by so many, all of them worthwhile and moving.